Over 19 Million persons Living With Diabetes In Africa- WHO.
As Nation’s across the world commemorates the World Diabetes day, the world Health Organisation say more than 19 million persons are currently living with diabetes with the number expected to grow to 47 million by 2025.
In a message from WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the world body expressed sadness that two-thirds of people living with diabetes in African countries are unaware of their condition. The known risk factors for diabetes include family history, age, being overweight, having a sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet, or use of alcohol or tobacco.
“Left unchecked, without management and lifestyle changes, diabetes can lead to heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, lower limb amputation, visual impairment, blindness and nerve damage, including erectile dysfunction. People with diabetes are also at higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 symptom”.
The body however called on governments to invest in making essential products like insulin, blood glucometers and test strips available to all communities. This should be backed by training of health workers in noncommunicable disease prevention and management at the district and community level towards improving service availability.
” I also urge all people living with diabetes to protect yourself from severe COVID-19 illness and death, by getting vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as you can.is observed every 14 November to raise awareness of the growing burden of the disease and strategies to prevent and treat it”.
The Statement further reads: surveys by WHO on access to essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic, show that access to diabetes care has been severely disrupted in the African Region.
To improve equitable access to quality diabetes care, WHO launched the Global Diabetes Compact in April 2021. This builds on work in recent years to rollout the WHO Package of Essential Noncommunicable Disease (WHO PEN) interventions for primary health care in low-resource settings. So far 21 African countries have started using this package. Benin, Eritrea, Eswatini, Lesotho and Togo have achieved national expansion covering all primary health care facilities.
Ultimately, services to prevent and manage diabetes care are essential components in realizing Universal Health Coverage, so that all people can access the care they need.
The theme of this year’s edition of the World Diabetes Day, “Access to diabetes care”WHO say was chosen because too many people still do not have access to diagnostics, medicines and monitoring devices that can help with diabetes management.
This year also marks the centenary of the discovery of insulin in 1921, a scientific achievement which changed the lives of people living with diabetes,it added.